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Tuesday, 27 July 2010

Hating seagulls is like being racist or homophobic

I stole this from Iced Tea and Sarcasm. I don't even know where it's from originally. Oh well.

Ok, so I seem to have been getting a lot of traffic from people interested in the whole hating seagulls being like racism or homophobia, so I feel I should offer an opinion. Since this is a blog, I've decided that rather than reading the article and writing a balanced, considered response, I've decided to make uniformed commentary. On one level, hating seagulls simply for being seagulls is, of course, speciesism, (or something). And I suppose it is comparable - hating all seagulls because one defecated on your grandmother is like hating all black people because one... defecated on your grandmother. Or whatever. But there are differences - in my unnecessarily scatological analogy, an entire race was judged on the actions of one person. However, seagulls do shit one things, indiscriminately. So it's not a prejudice; it's based on fact gained from experience, not assumptions made without study. However, the main issue is, I suppose, the hate of seagulls for being something they couldn't help but be. At the end of the day, we have to remember that no-gull chooses to be a seagull. Maybe we should say no to hate, and the next time we're pooped on from up high, remember that it wasn't our flying friends' fault.